Christmas wreath

      
         
          This is a very easy wreath. You can few of them in no time.  It has a always-fluffy bow, made by stuffing a felt pockets with poly-fil and then sewing the openings shut.

          For tutorial, click here.

Easy decorative wreath 2 - tutorial

        There was a brilliant idea for a wreath base floating on Pinterest. It was so brilliant that I had to try it. It works great and you just can't beat the cost. You can get 6 feet of foam tubing for less than a dollar ( if you go with the smaller diameter ). Cutting it in half gives you two pieces ( 3 feet each ), perfect for two wreaths.
     The idea of using a foam tubing from a home improvement store comes originally from this blog. Once you tape the ends together to form a circle - the possibilities are endless from there. I used a felt strip to wrap around the tubing and added felt rosettes and felt leaves.

Let's start!

Take your foam tubing and tape it's ends together to form a circle. Now you have your base! Cool, isn't it? :)

Cut a 2" wide strip along the length of your felt. The longer the better.

Start wrapping your felt strip starting where you taped the tubing ends together. Add a dub of hot glue on each end, attaching the strip to the base of your wreath.

 My piece wasn't long enough to go all the way around. Actually, I had to use three strips of felt to cover the whole base. I made sure that all three beginnings of the new strips was in the back of the wreath.

Now that we have our base covered, let's make the decorations!
Cut out your leaves. I didn't use a template here. I am sure you can find one but it is really easy to free-form it.

Cut 4" x 4" squares out of felt. This will be for the rosettes. Cut as many as you want - I had 8 pieces.

Take each square, round the corners and cut out a thin strip going in spiral motion. ( see below ).

Roll your strip until a rosette is formed.

Add your flowers and leaves. Arrange them until you are happy with the look. Then take your hot glue gun and glue every piece in place.

You are done! Enjoy your new, cheap but fun wreath!

          This is just one of a few ideas on using this base that I will be posting on my blog. Make sure you come back to see them! Of course, if you will get inspired by my tutorial, feel free to post a link to your results in comments below.

Summer Tote Bag #1

                  I feel like we have been awaiting this warm weather for sooo long. :) Time to put away the winter sweaters and coats and pull out t-shirts, shorts and skirts. Especially, if you have two little Girls in the house. :)

                 Before the Baby #3 comes, I have a long to-do list as far as sewing goes. I started with a tote bag. New season, new bag - sounds good, right? :) ( Well, any reason for a new bag is good to me :) ).
As a follower of  Skip to My Lou blog I am familiar with her great tut on making a tote bag. It is fast and so versatile. I used it to whip up this bag in no time:

                It went together so fast that I knew I will be making more, slightly altering the dimensions. And I did, but I will share it in the next post. :)

                I added a turquoise flower ( of course:) ) as an embellishment. I love how it turned out!

                If you have your favorite tutorial for a tote bag, please share it in the comments!
Thank you for looking!

Ruffle shirts for two Little Daisies

       We all have seen Sachiko's from Tea Rose Home tutorial on refashioning a plain t-shirt into a romantic ruffle shirt. I have been meaning to give it a try for some time now. Well, I finally got my courage to do it :).

      My daughters love girly clothes and dress-up so I decided to use the tutorial and make the ruffle shirts for them.

      I had to adjust the ruffle lengths. I also added shirred bottoms.

     A perfect pair of Spring/Summer shirts for my two Little Daisies:).

Barrette Holder Tutorial

                I made heart barrettes for my daughters for the upcoming Valentine's Day. Having two little girls means having a lot of hair accessories. Especially barrettes, because once you start making them - you can't stop! :).
               Than I thought that it would be great to have something to clip them onto for storage. Like a holder. Like a Barrette Holder :).

              Here is my tutorial on how to make a barrette holder. You can hang it in the bathroom  ( close to hair brushes ) or on the door of the kid's closet.


 
Materials needed:
felt ( red, pink, cream )
1/2" wide grossgrain ribbon ( pink ), about 21"
DMC embroidery floss in red and pink
white thread
needle

This tutorial show how to make a Heart Barrette Holder, but you can choose any theme you want.

1. Make 3 heart patterns: large, medium and small. My measurements: 3,5", 2", 1" ( in the widest part of the heart ). Cut out one large heart, two medium hearts and two small hearts.

2. Pin the large heart pattern onto the cream felt, the medium heart pattern onto the pink felt and the small heart pattern onto the red felt. Cut the hearts out. ( I had a little help in drawing the heart patterns:) ).

3. Place the medium heart on top of the large heart. Thread the red DMC floss onto the needle. You can separate the embroidery floss into two groups of 3 threads each and use one group. Embellish the edge of the pink heart with the red floss ( just like on the picture), sewing through both hearts. This way you sew them together.

Sew the small red heart onto the pink and cream hearts with a smallest stitch possible ( so it is quite invisible). You can make more stitches in the back.

Thread the pink floss and embellish the cream large heart's edge.

5. Thread the needle with your regular white sewing thread. Place one of the small red hearts on top of the medium pink heart. Match the grossgrain ribbon to the back of your big heart. Sew it all together.

6. Place the small heart on top of the middle size heart and embellish the edge sewing the two hearts together.  ( just like with the large and medium hearts).

7. Attach the end of your pink ribbon to the back of the medium cream heart and sew it on.

8. Make a hanging loop from a small piece of ribbon - see picture:

9. Hang the holder and clip the barrettes on! One more way to get organized this year :)

This tutorial is linked to: